Revel M16 Speaker Review

[maty]

Please, open a specific thread and we continue there.

 

[thewas]

Please do it yourself if you want to, as you are the one posting these stuff in almost every loudspeaker thread.

 

[BurgerCheese]

Unless the taming of the woofer breakup resonance peak with a 2 Dollar LC notch. If it is the woofer, but i guess it is.

I would assume they tried that during development, but that someone (management) decided it wasn't worth the extra cost. I doubt the difference would be very audible during listening. Any senior manager that I ever had would then instantly think there's $2 extra profit to be had.

 

[Koeitje]

Who cares about deep bass? It's a bookshelf speaker. The subs should be handling the bass anyways, so this is a meaningless metric. Using a lower sensitivity woofer with higher excursion to attempt to play lower than it needs to would add cost and reduce capability above crossover for no reason. As long as it plays low enough to cross to subs at 80 Hz or so, keeping the cost lower and sensitivity higher is a better design.

We also have to remember that this is an MSRP $900 speaker. No one should pay anywhere near that for them. $6-$700 on a bad day is more realistic. Also, I think we have to remember that just the bare cabinets themselves with such a high end finished, curved sides, and all rounded edges are arguably worth the discounted price you pay for these. I sure as hell wouldn't want to try to make cabs this nice myself, nor would I want to try and pay a woodworker what it would cost for cabs this nice. To get a very well engineered turnkey speaker finished this nicely is quite a bargain in terms of just how nice the cabs are. I'm honestly surprised they are able to sell them quite so inexpensively.

In the Netherlands these are never discounted, as an American brand the prices are pretty much fixed. If I could them with a 25% discount I would have bought m106's ages ago.

Getting things properly crossed with subs is kinda hard if you want to do it in the digital domain before sending through a dac + pre-amp (because you need multiple outputs). You need the digital minidsp + Oktodac for example, of the minidsp shd.

 

[March Audio]

When the sound difference is so large, no measurement is necessary. The speakers are almost seven years old. I never suspected that the M.D.L capacitor and the Bennic cemented resistor were a bottleneck and much less of that magnitude!

I answer for allusions. Who is more interested to open a specific thread and I will participate.

Measurement is ALWAYS necessary to prevent you kidding yourself there is a difference where there is none.

 

[Jon AA]

Where is the problem of the cement resistors? If I would search for a bottleneck in those crossovers it would rather be the iron core inductors.

The speaker also has binding posts instead of "tube connectors!" The horror! You can't actually measure any difference, but you can sure hear it!

Maty, please expand your horizons a bit instead of relying so heavily on one guy for all your information.

 

[FrantzM]

As for the cemented resistors, I had no problem with them, because I assumed they have very low inductance. But after changing those of the KEF Q100 of the Bennic brand for Mills MRA the difference was very noticeable, undeniable for anyone. Of course, comparing a box with the old resitor and the other with the new one, and two persons (always the same).

The first surprised was me!

- End off topic -

I hear you:
A bit OT:
I recently replaced the stock AC power cord of my JBL LSR308 with a Zybagrev AC Power cord. The difference was astounding! Night and Day!!

. It may seem silly to use a $1000 (each) AC power cord on a $300 Active speaker but the highs were so much better, the bass more dimensional and the soundstage so wide and focused that even my fiancee noticed it ... because it reached the street while she was getting in the garage.So this is a wise upgrade... Total of $2000 AC Power Cord on a $600/pair speaker.... I plan later to change the XLR cable to some MIT or Transparent Audio models..

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Looking at the distortion peak at about 1.8kHz, we note it is purely 3rd harmonic. That puts the corresponding energy at 5.4 kHz, just where we see a peak that is almost certainly the woofer's breakup. This is hardly a surprise, and is not a trivial thing to control. Using an elliptic section or a notch can often help get the crossover away from such nasties, but this one is just going to be too hard, with what is a somewhat high crossover frequency. OTOH, it only peaks to less than 1% in a narrow range, which for a speaker isn't massively dreadful in context. I would imagine it is audible, but may not be overly objectionable. It might add a bit of zing to the sound.
That massive peak above 200Hz looks really bad, and I wonder if there isn't a mundane mechanical issue at play. Something needs to be broken for that to happen. The Q is way to high to be something operating nominally.

 

[Shazb0t]

I hear you:
A bit OT:
I recently replaced the stock AC power cord of my JBL LSR308 with a Zybagrev AC Power cord. The difference was astounding! Night and Day!!

. It may seem silly to use a $1000 (each) AC power cord on a $300 Active speaker but the highs were so much better, the bass more dimensional and the soundstage so wide and focused that even my fiancee noticed it ... because it reached the street while she was getting in the garage.So this is a wise upgrade... Total of $2000 AC Power Cord on a $600/pair speaker.... I plan later to change the XLR cable to some MIT or Transparent Audio models..

Prove it.

 

[QMuse]

You seem to fail to realize that cone breakup will (usually) only be visible in the frequency response on-axis. And it is visible, the shape of the on-axis peak even looks like the distortion peak!

So this alleged woofer cone breakup at 5kHz is visible only in on-axis but not in listening window? And also not visible in THD graph?

And you can't think of any other cause for that mild peak in on-axis response apart from cone breakup?

 

[BurgerCheese]

So this alleged woofer cone breakup at 5kHz is visible only in on-axis but not in listening window? And also not visible in THD graph?

Eh, this is getting tiresome. It's the 3rd order distortion at 1.6-1.8kHz. You know, multiply by 3?

 

[QMuse]

Looking at the distortion peak at about 1.8kHz, we note it is purely 3rd harmonic. That puts the corresponding energy at 5.4 kHz, just where we see a peak that is almost certainly the woofer's breakup.

And that 3rd harmonic at 1800 somehow magically manages to be present only at on-axis but not in listening window? Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me..

 

[BDWoody]

Prove it.

You do understand that he was being facetious...?

 

[Shazb0t]

You do understand that he was being facetious...?

LOL I just assumed it was maty spouting nonsense again.

 

[YSDR]

And that 3rd harmonic at 1800 somehow magically manages to be present only at on-axis but not in listening window? Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me..

Come on, you can do better than this! Especially after 300 driver measurement.

 

[QMuse]

Eh, this is getting tiresome. It's the 3rd order distortion at 1.6-1.8kHz. You know, multiply by 3?

You keep bubbling about that small peak in on-axis response at 5.1kHz without providing any proof that it is coming from cone break up.

Are you really trying to say that Harman engineers choosed a woofer which experiences cone breakeup at 1800Hz and letting it run up to the 2100Hz XO point? Were they drunk, high or both?

 

[BDWoody]

LOL I just assumed it was maty spouting nonsense again.

That was @FrantzM responding with a comparably valid 'contribution.'

It is easy to get confused by all that wtf, I agree...

 

[BurgerCheese]

And you can't think of any other cause for that mild peak in on-axis response apart from cone breakup?

A mild peak in on-axis response can have many causes, but not when paired with the 3rd order distortion at 1.6-1.8 kHz. There are other possible causes, but the overwhelmingly likely cause is woofer cone breakup. Claiming that Harman engineers can turn water into wine is not a good counterargument.

 

[QMuse]

Claiming that Harman engineers can turn water into wine is not a good counterargument.

Did I really claim that? Or I said I doubt they wouldn't make such beginers mistake that even DIY-ers rarely make these days?

 

[QMuse]

A mild peak in on-axis response can have many causes, but not when paired with the 3rd order distortion at 1.6-1.8 kHz. There are other possible causes, but the overwhelmingly likely cause is woofer cone breakup. Claiming that Harman engineers can turn water into wine is not a good counterargument.

Btw, you still didn't explain why that "cone breakup" doesn't show in LW.